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Media Representation Of American Culture Essay

742 Words3 Pages

“Do we feel like we want to be accepted into white people’s space?”(Kimberly Brown, PHD) Television media is one of the most powerful tools used for entertainment and information in the generation that we live in now. Hence, it features accurate portrayals of racial groups in order to erase what exists between people in today’s society. Many Americans rely on television as a source of information and entertainment; thus, it is a dominant source in today’s culture. According to the 2009 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics- American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which measures how the average American spends their time, discovered that Americans 15 years-old and above spent 2.8 hours per day watching television (BLS , news release) American films is an accurate representation of American culture. This is displayed through various on-screen representation of different ethanitaties and living environment as well as the different types of films produced.
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Therefore, a person who watches numerous shows will believe that he/she is living in a world more dangerous than it 159 actually is, large in part because their sense of crime becomes heightened (Gerbner & Gross, 1976). Racial discrimination and how it was deeply engrossed within the fabrics of the American society at the time, is seen as the major cause of their plights. Black actors were treated with low regard and given roles that had little impact on the main plots at many times.(Christy Pierre,1999) Many of the talented black actors were ignored, vilified or even utterly dismissed from movie production houses at the start of the 20th century (Higginbotham, 2001). The few who joined the industry had little chance of making any great impact as their white

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